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anticipated effect. On the other hand, rural roads’ investments were not found to have a
significant impact, at least over project lifetime. This does not diminish the relevance of
rural roads programs as an important element of development strategies for rural areas
but it suggests that they must be combined with other types of interventions (e.g. in rural
infrastructure or through the local development window) in order to enhance impact.
A “threshold-based” interpretation, further discussed in Annex 5, is that simple
interventions like NMT tracks can represent a major improvement for the most rural
communities (by making a difference between having no access at all and having basic
access) and be sufficient to help relieve key bottlenecks to some income-generating
activities. On the other hand, rural roads improvement alone may generally not be
sufficient to alleviate rural poverty (although they can make an important contribution to
facilitate access to social services and to diversify the productive base). Finally, no
conclusions could be drawn about whether the greatest project impact was on extreme or,
rather, non-extreme poverty.
Gender: A detailed gender assessment is presented in Annex 6. Project objectives were in
line with the current World Bank gender action plan. Achievements illustrate how
intensifying gender mainstreaming in this particular rural transport operation has resulted
in improving women’s access to product and labor markets. The project also ascertained
how the transport sector can contribute to the achievement of the MDG39, by developing
women’s empowerment and promoting gender equity. The project epitomized with
successful gender-oriented actions that women are a driving force in poverty reduction
(as illustrated by the key role they played in the LDW activities) and that eluding gender
concerns in transport policies and projects might constitute a missed opportunity to
involve women as potential contributors to economic growth.
Access- The 2005 poverty assessment for Peru argued that social mobility and
opportunities depended on improved access. The project made two important
contributions in improving access for rural women:
•
Providing physical access - Small rural infrastructure interventions have impacted
the multi-task burden of rural women by smoothing the opportunity cost of their
time and increasing their mobility choices. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed
women confirmed they traveled more and further and 67 percent felt they traveled
more safely The rehabilitation of the NMT tracks, mostly used by women,
specifically addressed women’s transport needs in rural areas: (i) women’s
allocation of time is now more efficient as they are freed from wasting their daily
time in long trips; (ii) the cleaner and safer tracks encourage them to travel as new
opportunities of mobility arise, like selling agricultural products further as well as
giving birth in health centers and hospitals and obtaining the birth certificate for
further name registration10 avoiding insalubrious conditions; (iii) women’s
attendance and participation in community meetings or assemblies is more
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Millennium Development Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Undocumented people continue being a problem in Peru. About 25 % of the population is undocumented,
because limited access to name registration, institutional birth delivery, among other reasons.
Undocumented people are rural, indigenous, illiterate and women.
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